At the Cove, Oregon, December 10, 1888, Mrs. R. Wright, aged 68 years and 17 days.
Mrs. Wright was born in Indiana and was married in that state at the age of 24, and moved from there to Iowa. From there she and her husband moved to Kansas and from Kansas moved to Oregon, and on November 23, 1865 arrived in the Cove. She was converted at the age of 15, and was a devoted worshipper of God through all her life. Her husband was not in sympanty with her religious views, and often opposed her, but after long perserverance in her efforts for him she saw him converted, but he only lived a few years after his conversion. After her husband’s death the opposition to her religion came now from her children, but she went right on discharging her religous duty. So anxious was she for the welfare of others that she would take her bible and go out among the wickedest of her neighbors and pray with them and come home to be opposed by her children for doing so. When she would express her deep anxiety for their conversion, offering to pray, then and there, for them.
Oh! If we could only forget the past, but in spite of our painful efforts it still remains fresh in our memories. I would much like to say to young boys and girls, when young is the time to begin to treat your parents and friends with respect before it is to late for them to realize your desire to do so. John B. Gough says it is very common for persons to say it will come out all right by and by. What can begin wrong and end right? Never two diverging lines meet, but go on widening to all eternity, there is no coming together. I tell you a man is a fool who undertakes to go wrong and expects he will come out right. Somehow or other, at the end if he comes back he will come with bleeding feet, and torn flesh and streaming eyes and a broken heart. He must come back thus if he ever comes at all to the right.
She was taken very sick on December 4th. Wid and I scarcely left her bedside for five days. If we did she would call for us. Being so heavy it took both of us to handle her, and it seemed she did not care for anyone else to help her. About one o’clock on the morning of the 10th she said she might not get well and wanted to arrange her business affairs. We called in Mr. A. Conklin to do the writing for her. After he had written what she asked him to, she said, “Now Wid. prop me up in bed and I will sign my name to this for I want everything to be all right. You may think I cannot now write but hand me my glasses Vina, and pen and ink and I will show you.” After being shown where to put her name she took the pen and wrote her name with apparently as much ease as when she was well. She never ceased talking from then until daylight, and told us often that she was ready to go, and was going to glory, and did not want us to weep over her.
She talked deliberately about having her shroud made and seemed to regret that I had not made it long ago, as she had had the material in the house fully a year. She had wanted that I should make it for her, but I told her I had sent it to Mrs. Swain to have it made. She seemed much concerned about it and so I ordered it made. It was with peculiar coolness and deliberation that she talked about it, and about how it was to be and various other things in regard to her funeral. She seemed indued with remarkable power to deliver a noble prayer just before she died. She seemed to be past speaking above a whisper, but with remarkable strength she prayed out loud as was her wont in church or meeting, beginning with the Lord’s prayer and ending in these words “When it is ours to die receive us for the Redeemer’s sake, amen.
Her Daughter
Vina
Eastern Oregon Republican, Thursday
December 13, 1888